Reddit Article: Is Stalker 2 Now Playable?

[Xyyth]

Is Stalker 2 now playable? - My Honest Review

So I started a completely new playthrough when the latest Christmas Patch came out and wanted to test if things had gotten better or not.
I finished the game today, and I have noticed a lot of good and bad things. I want to give you my honest review. Please share your experience and your opinion—let me know if I’m right in my review or wrong (please be objective and fair).

**Context**: I am not a Stalker fanboy, meaning I will try to be as objective and honest about the game as I can. Yes, I also played the original OG games: SoC, CS, CoP.
**Difficulty**: Veteran
**Specs**: Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 3070, 32GB RAM, 1920x1080
**Settings**: Medium-High Settings, DLSS Quality, FSR 3.1 Framegen on.

Let me first start with the good and bad points.
We’ll begin with the **Good Stuff**.

# Pros

1. **Extremely beautiful graphics, animations, and sound design.** The game looks absolutely incredible, though it does come with performance costs (more on that later). Furthermore, the animations are clean and really add to the immersion. The sound design is on point and makes the Zone feel alive.
2. **It’s still a Stalker game.** This might sound strange, but I love that the game sticks to its original design and feel. It looks like a Stalker game, it plays like one, and it even has plenty of bugs like the original Stalker games. If you loved the original Stalker games, you will definitely love this too!
3. **Open-world game with unique characters, cutscenes, and story choices with different endings.** The game features a variety of characters, cutscenes, and choices that lead to different endings. It really adds to the immersion and allows you, as the player, to join a side and play the story the way you want. It also lets you explore an extremely well-designed map where regions and locations from the older games are mapped into one place. It’s amazing to explore and loot various regions and sites.
4. **A-Life now exists (kind of).** With the recent patches, the developers have improved A-Life in the game. You’ll now see more NPCs from different factions roaming the Zone, fighting each other or mutants. It’s still not as perfect as in the original games but is SO MUCH BETTER than the initial release of Stalker 2, where A-Life was practically non-existent.

# Cons

1. **The game still has extreme performance and bug issues in specific regions.** This issue has been discussed since the game’s release, but even after the new Christmas patches, performance and bug issues persist in certain regions. The starting area (Zalissya) has been optimized well, but other regions, like **Rostok** and **Pripyat**, experience severe performance drops, going from 120 FPS to 20 FPS non-stop! This ruined my experience because the first half of the game is so good, but the second half destroys the fun due to performance issues and bugs. Additionally, game-breaking bugs can occur, like NPCs blocking critical doors or quests not being marked as completed.
2. **Extremely frustrating enemy NPCs.** Enemy NPCs have pinpoint accuracy with every weapon—it’s so insane that even a shotgun from 50 meters can hit you like a sniper. The stealth mechanics are weird too; no matter what you do, enemies can always see or hear you. Even when you’re hiding behind bushes, turning off your flashlight, or far away, they instantly know your location and rush you. Sometimes, enemies even spawn behind you in areas you’ve just cleared. And some NPCs can shoot through walls, while you thinking what hell is going on (haha).
3. **Night cycle is poorly implemented.** In the original Stalker games, you had decent flashlights or night vision goggles to help you see in the dark. In Stalker 2, once night falls, you can’t see enemies in unlit buildings. Combined with frustrating enemy combat and performance issues, this leads to frequent deaths. The flashlight in Stalker 2 is as effective as a small cigarette lighter, and there are no night vision goggles. Your only option is to sleep and do missions in daylight, but the day/night cycle is so fast that you will have to make mission in the night anyway.
4. **The game can feel like a walking simulator.** Early on, walking distances are manageable and interesting because you’re discovering the map and being rewarded for exploration. Later in the game, distances become ridiculous—sometimes you have to walk 1.7 km to complete a mission and then walk 1.5 km back to report to an NPC. Even if you use a guide, missions are often placed at the farthest ends of the map. Overweight mechanics make it worse—your stamina depletes in 3 seconds. Energy drinks will fill up your stamina bar, but after 3 second of sprinting, everything is gone again.
5. **Some mutants are bullet sponges.** In the original Stalker games, mutants didn’t take as many bullets as they do in Stalker 2. Fights feel repetitive because it’s just shooting, running, and repeating the cycle. Mutants have so much health that it feels like a waste of bullets and resources unless you use a shotgun, which is the only effective weapon against mutants.
6. **Annoying boss fights and NPC spawns.** Some boss fights are frustrating because you’re attacked from multiple directions and need to navigate like a ninja to survive. Towards the end, the game spams you with Monolith enemies that require 4–5 headshots with the AS Lavina to kill.
7. **Shader loading screen issues.** Since the recent patch, the shader loading screen sometimes gets stuck. The only fix is to close the game via Task Manager, restart it, and pray that it loads properly.

# Final Thoughts

**Is Stalker 2 playable?** Yes, if you can tolerate performance and gameplay bug issues.
However, if you want a bug-free and stable experience, I recommend waiting for more patches from GSC to improve performance and fix bugs.

What do you think? I know the developers faced challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and learning a new engine. Still, given the $60 price tag, I wanted to be fair.

It’s a miracle the game even exists. Despite the issues, I enjoyed it so much that I bought it at launch to support the developers.
**RIP to the devs who lost their lives in Ukraine :(**

[Mikebeez]

Please for the love of god get that garbage Reddit propaganda out of here.

Stupid website for stupid people who have mods that ban pages that do not agree with their world views and political views with zero free speech.

If it's from Reddit, do us a favor and keep it there. Bring it here and you won't be taken seriously.

If you use it as a source as well, I feel bad for you.

[Ruiner]

I've had a Reddit account for over 15 years. What the hell is a Reddit "Article"?

[vamirez]

Anything that contains "an honest review", "my honest bla view", should be dismissed right off the bat. Do not try to give yourself artificial trustworthiness - just say what you want to say, and if you aren't "honest" usually people will notice anyway. And a lot of the "honest view" takes are anything but. Also don't plug your game reviews on the forum imo. Your review is not better or more important than the other ones in the review section.
No, I didn't read it.

[Laza]

Graphics are "extremely beautiful"? Are you nuts? It's fine but nothing more, except NPCs as they look as if the game released 10 years ago, same with animations, especially during dialogues. Landscapes, textures and some light effects look decent enough but nowhere near to justify that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ performance. It feels dated and badly optimised.

In many ways it looks similar or just slightly better than the 2014 release of metro 2033 remaster - only that metro manages to deliver the immersion. If you think stalker2 is extremely beautiful metro exodus (2019) will blow you away.

[Salivala]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Anything that contains "an honest review", "my honest bla view", should be dismissed right off the bat. Do not try to give yourself artificial trustworthiness - just say what you want to say, and if you aren't "honest" usually people will notice anyway. And a lot of the "honest view" takes are anything but. Also don't plug your game reviews on the forum imo. Your review is not better or more important than the other ones in the review section.
No, I didn't read it.

Holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ true. Read my brain

[Medicbobs]

Loving the game so much!

[rasse]

Originally posted by Laza:

Graphics are "extremely beautiful"? Are you nuts? It's fine but nothing more, except NPCs as they look as if the game released 10 years ago, same with animations, especially during dialogues. Landscapes, textures and some light effects look decent enough but nowhere near to justify that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ performance. It feels dated and badly optimised.

In many ways it looks similar or just slightly better than the 2014 release of metro 2033 remaster - only that metro manages to deliver the immersion. If you think stalker2 is extremely beautiful metro exodus (2019) will blow you away.

I'm 100% with you in this. The performance/graphics quality ratio is absurd. The game looks like 10 years old at least and for the looks of it, my RTX 4080 should run it stable +150fps on 1440p. But it doesn't.

I just played Black Myth: Wukong before this and that was stunning. I could play it all cinematic and get ~90fps with my then 4k monitor and DLSS quality so played 1440p.
Considering this has the same game engine is ridiculous.

I'm waiting the devs to patch this game and will try again. Bought it at launch and refunded after 30mins.

[lockwoodx]

Reddit is gulag trash designed to shape opinions not celebrate them.